Lenovo is buying Infinidat for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition gives the combined parties immense opportunity to impact all segments of the storage market.
Besides being the global leader in PCs, Lenovo is the biggest earner in storage for smaller amounts. However, those who spend more than $100,000 on a storage solution end up shopping elsewhere. Infinidat is a player of note in this regard, although it cannot match Lenovo’s immense scale.
Now it does—at least when the proposed Lenovo-Infinidat deal is complete. Greg Huff, CTO of Lenovo Infrastructure Solutions Group, says the new combination is well positioned for innovation: “Infinidat’s expertise in high-performance, high-end data storage solutions broadens the scope of our products, and together, we will drive new opportunities for growth.”
Infinidat upscaling
Huff’s articulation shows that Lenovo has added a valuable asset. But Infinidat CEO Phil Bullinger suggests his company can also squeeze its hands. “With Lenovo’s extensive global capabilities, we look forward to expanding the comprehensive value we provide to enterprise and service provider customers across on-premises and hybrid multi-cloud environments.”
It’s not just the larger production scale that makes Infinidat stronger now. In the long run, the huge R&D budget will also be key to playing a strong role in a competitive market. Storage is an obvious bottleneck with the rise of AI workloads, for example, because AI training and RAG during inferencing need to access as much data as quickly as possible. For now, this is only feasible for larger organizations with much capital, where Infinidat and not Lenovo have played a significant role so far.
Also read: “Storage is the only industry where 10x better doesn’t convince”